The popularity of dinosaurs - for better, for worse

This article is being cross-posted at the website of the London-based 2016 Popularizing Palaeontology workshop as part of a series of blog posts focusing on the discussions and themes of that event. Over the course of this two day workshop curators, artists, historians and palaeontologists presented talks and led round-table discussions about the history and current state of palaeontological outreach. I presented a talk at this workshop - entitled 'The importance and impact of palaeoart in palaeontological outreach', which you can see here. The following is not based on this talk, but rather a theme that seemed - to me - to be consistent across many presentations and discussions, including my own.

Whether it's a giant armoured thyreophoran like Panoplosaurus mirus (thanks to the Empress of Ankylosauria, Victoria Arbour, for advice on this restoration) or a svelte theropod like Chirostenotes pergracilis, everyone likes dinosaurs and we - palaeontologists - like using them in our outreach. But are dinosaurs really universally popular and appropriate for the wide range of outreach we use them in?

The Popularizing Palaeontology workshops held in August 2016 presented fascinating insights into the history and current state of palaeontological outreach. Our many talks and roundtable discussions touched varied topics but several central themes emerged, of which one was the prevalence of dinosaurs in virtually all palaeontological PR exercises. Whatever we discussed - the history of museums, the palaeoart industry, public interest in research or palaeontological influences on cinema - dinosaurs were almost always involved. Even if they weren’t a main focus, their influence there - catalysing certain events, influencing decisions, eclipsing other outreach topics. It would be wrong to say popularising palaeontology is totally synonymous with popularising dinosaurs, but for better and worse, these animals have a major role and influence over public outreach of palaeontological science.

The success of dinosaurs in outreach

Exactly why dinosaurs occupy such an important and influential space in popular culture remains largely mysterious. On paper, dinosaurs are a group of extinct reptiles which are not - superficially at least - so different from other long-dead sauropsids, and yet they have somehow gained global fame and many dedicated followers. My suspicion is that dinosaurs uniquely combine obviously amazing, ‘high impact’ anatomy - large size, fantastic skeletal structures such as horns, huge teeth and so on - with bauplans that are easily understood by the general public, without being so familiar that they’re pedestrian. For instance, everyone can appreciate Allosaurus as an active, large bodied predator even if just looking at its skeleton in a museum, but - as bird-like as it is in detail - the overall form is somewhat alien and intriguing. Other fossil groups, such as ancient carnivorans or whales, are impressive enough but perhaps also too familiar to inspire our imaginations in the same way. At the other end of the spectrum are extinct creatures which are just too unusual for widespread appreciation. Perhaps their anatomy is too strange or their life histories are too obscure and difficult to relate to familiar biology. This applies to many extinct invertebrates, as well as several types of weirder vertebrates. Dinosaur biology is thus near perfect for outreach material: they’re visually impressive, anatomically and biologically accessible, but different enough to warrant interest. Whether this is the actual basis for dinosaurian appeal or not, museum staff, educators and merchandisers have realised for over 150 years that dinosaurs are an excellent way to interest the public and make money, and given them prominent roles in outreach. Aiding any intuitive draw we have to dinosaurs is a lot of social inertia, and part of the enduring appeal of dinosaurs is a long history of ingraining them into popular culture.

The success of dinosaurs in the public eye almost certainly reflects many varied influences, but their unique anatomical qualities may play an important role. Does any other fossil group combine interesting, ‘high impact’ biology, in a format that the public can easily grasp, in the way that dinosaurs do?

For those of us interested in science education, dinosaurs are one of the most important and potent tools at our disposal. We see them as not only fascinating subjects in their own right but as a way to introduce ‘bigger picture’, perhaps fundamentally more important, scientific concepts to lay audiences. Dinosaurs are gateways to discussions of evolution, adaptation, anatomy, biological diversity, extinction, geological time and the changing nature of the planet. They provide, as charismatic and fantastic creatures, perfect characters to maintain interest in discussions of these sometimes complex concepts, and well-known Mesozoic dramas - the breakup of Pangea, formation of the Deccan Trapps, the Chicxulub Impact - offer rich backgrounds to stage our conversations. Dinosaurs are more than just awesome animals: they’re public ambassadors for science, facts and intelligent thinking.

We cannot ignore the economic value of dinosaurs, too - and not just to Hollywood movie makers and toy manufacturers. Dinosaurs provide academia and its satellite industries with vital income because of their easy marketability and merchandising potential. Public interest in dinosaur news, books and artwork keeps authors and palaeoartists in work, while the pull of dinosaur exhibitions in natural history museums not only keeps turnstiles spinning but brings essential revenue - in the form of gift shop purchases, entry fees and cafe visits - to these underfunded venues. I don’t know that anyone has ever attempted to work out the net worth of dinosaurs to education, but, globally, their appeal must bring millions of pounds into venues that perform outreach every year.

Too much of a good thing?

So hurrah for dinosaurs, then, and their role as not only fascinating subjects for research and art, but as bankable, relatable and demanded elements of modern culture. But the popularity of dinosaurs does have an impact on other aspects of palaeontological PR, and in some conversations at our workshop ‘dinosaur’ almost became a bit of dirty word. No-one will deny the positive aspects of dinosaur popularity, but their dominance in popularised palaeontology influences outreach strategies, merchandising and public expectation, and not always in a positive way.

Some of the problems caused by dinosaurs were outlined in detail during talks at our workshop. We heard that a large portion of natural history museum visitors are exclusively concerned with seeing dinosaur exhibits, challenging natural history museums to use the rest of their collections in a meaningful, impactful manner. This is despite many museum goers being unable to distinguish dinosaur remains from those of other animals without the aid of helpful signage. It seems that, for some museum visitors, dinosaurs act like a brand label, or justification for interest, rather than an excuse to visit a museum for a rounded educational experience.

We also heard that bringing attention to non-dinosaur groups can be extremely difficult, and the less dinosaur-like they are, the harder it is. Groups like pre-Cenozoic synapsids, extinct invertebrates, fossil fish and so on struggle for attention and require highly creative outreach tactics to receive any interest. One of the commonest strategies - used frequently for semi-technical books on fossil animals (below) - is to make sure dinosaurs remain prominently mentioned even in those events or products which are focused on completely unrelated groups of animals. We just don’t trust most non-dinosaur clades to draw crowds or revenue on their own and have to spin them as being relevant to dinosaurs in some way. Tellingly, the only groups to escape frequent dinosaur namechecking are those which are already somewhat ‘dinosaur-like’. Giant fossil mammals, pterosaurs and Mesozoic marine reptiles share aspects of size and gross appearance with Mesozoic dinosaurs and might be seen as ‘honorary dinosaurs’ by the public, and perhaps mistakenly interpreted as the genuine article by many. Both dinosaur-targeted museum visits and our resistance to promote palaeontological topics without a dinosaurian safety net questions whether dinosaurs are a genuine ‘gateway’ to wider scientific education, and perhaps suggests a rather narrower interest in prehistoric life among the public.

Just some of the non-dinosaurian textbooks coming your way in 2017. Probably.

Our group also raised the association between dinosaur outreach and very young demographics, and the challenge this presented to educators. The problem isn’t that many children are naturally interested in dinosaurs - if anything, this is something to celebrate and encourage - but the impact this association has on older audiences. Many adults assume that anything to do with dinosaurs, and by extension any prehistoric animal, is automatically related to children, and often very young children. This becomes an issue for to those attempting to perform outreach or market palaeontologically-informed products to older audiences, and particularly outside of online venues. Experience shows that ‘real world’ dinosaur events - regardless of venue, event type or advertising theme - will be primarily stocked by children and parents expecting child-friendly media. I’ve experienced this many times in my outreach career, such as bowing to pressure for colouring-in stations at a palaeoart gallery, being asked whether a public lecture (entitled Palaeoart: the Never Ending Quest for Accuracy) was suitable for toddlers, and being invited to run art stalls and events for older audiences at dinosaur-themed events to find few interested people over 10 years of age.

The general expectation that dinosaur-related events or products skew towards children presents a complex set of challenges. Firstly, it can lead to older audiences deciding a priori that they cannot take anything away from dinosaur outreach because the event - whatever it is - is ‘just for kids’. I’m sure many of us have seen how ‘switched off’ parents of young dinosaur fanatics are when visiting outreach events, even though the people their children are speaking to may be expert scientists, experienced fossil hunters or world-renowned palaeoartists. Secondly, mismatched expectations of outreach events can be frustrating for both outreachers and audiences: attendees may wonder why a dinosaur event is pitched above the level of their children, while outreachers may feel over-prepared or over-invested in their activity programme when confronted with only young audiences. Perhaps the most concerning issue is that many outreachers and merchandisers use young demographics as an excuse for low scientific standards and sensationalism, promoting outdated, erroneous and sometimes idiosyncratic views of palaeontology because their audience is too young and insufficiently educated to know otherwise, or ignoring scientific data where it might curb child appeal. I am sure most readers can think of numerous examples of products - many labelled as ‘educational’ - which show evidence of this, and it’s easy to see how this attitude may play a major role in perpetuating outdated and erroneous ideas about the past.

One of our final discussion touched on perhaps another issue faced by dinosaur outreach: the schism between public and palaeontological appreciation of what dinosaurs are. For palaeontologists, dinosaurs are a constantly - and sometimes rapidly - evolving set of hypotheses and ideas, and this is what we generally try to present to the world in our outreach. But certain dinosaur concepts outgrew palaeontologist-steered media long ago and now occupy their own place in popular culture, one almost entirely divorced from developments of dinosaur science and instead orbiting their portrayals in film, TV and popular literature. Most of these products - even those produced in the last few years - stick to now long-outdated 20th century interpretations of dinosaur biology and, divorced from guiding hands of scientists, solely emphasise marketable aspects such as their size, perceived ferociousness, and unusual anatomy. The result is a public largely familiar with dinosaurs in a scientifically-distanced, simplified and monstrous form rather than the animals reconstructed through biological and geological sciences, and with little appreciation for their evolutionary context, the scientific techniques used to understand them, or their relationship to wider, ‘core themes’ of scientific outreach. Recent studies partly vindicate this view in showing that the public are generally unaware of even the most basic aspects of dinosaur science, such as the near 50-year old revision from the classic ‘tail-dragging’ posture to an elevated tail and horizontal body attitude (Ross et al. 2013). This is despite museums, artwork, documentaries and some of the most successful blockbuster movies of all time showing the latter since at least the 1990s. This being the case (and with an added caveat that the study in question was relatively small), perhaps our issue with dinosaur education is more severe than we thought: are people really engaging with dinosaur media at all, or are our subjects of research, artwork, and hallowed gateways to other sciences little more than time-fillers and distractions?

Despite the best efforts of many scientists, the public at large seem to associate dinosaurs with considerably outdated interpretations and monstrous creatures. Reviewing recent successful entries into one of the most widely-accessed sources of popular dinosaur culture - Hollywood movies - is this surprising? Perhaps the most visually progressive rendering in this set are the sparsely feathered dromaeosaurs from Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (bottom right). However, the state of their integument still recalls dinosaur palaeoart from the mid-1990s, and not the extensive feather body covering shown by fossil evidence and now commonly restored over certain dinosaur species. Image sources, from top row down; King Kong (2005); Godzilla (2014); Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014); Toy Story (1996 - onwards); Jurassic World (2015); The Good Dinosaur (2015).

So, are dinosaurs as useful as we think for outreach purposes?

The points raise a simple but significant question: how effective is dinosaur-based outreach, really? As noted above, many decisions about outreach are shaped around dinosaur science and resources are poured into promoting dinosaur science itself. But are we right to regard dinosaur outreach as highly as we do?

Trying to balance the positive and negative points raised above, my take is yes, dinosaurs are an effective means to bringing science to people… but probably only certain people. Specifically, they seem to work very well among those who are already tuned into palaeontology, natural history and general science, an audience composed mostly of adult enthusiasts and children. Beyond this, their effect seems to tail off quickly and they may actually be a barrier to effective outreach. Audiences with preconceived expectations of dinosaur-themed content may ignore anything dinosaur related, which is a concern with us giving dinosaurs such privileged consideration in educational material. Are we limiting our promotion of other topics that could engage these uninterested people? And is one of our challenges of popularising palaeontology making dinosaurs and related topics universally attractive, and not just subjects with appeal to specialist audiences or younger people?

Of course, your opinion on this matter may differ. But even so, I think most of us would agree that our wider education about dinosaurs and related matters could be more effective, or at least more nuanced and reflective of more topics, than it currently is. I am optimistic that a groundswell of suitable movements towards this goal may already be underway. Many modern curators, scientists and artists are attuned to matters of science communication and interested in identifying outreach issues, sharing best practise, evolving public engagement methods and reaching new audiences with new topics. The fact that this article is being written as output from a workshop dedicated to popularised palaeontology is evidence of these practises actually occurring, and it feels like the right questions are being discussed. How can we, and when should we, shift focus from dinosaurs? How do we make other forms of life/parts of museum collections of wider interest? How do we more effectively impart new science to publishers, movie makers and other non-educational bodies making palaeontologically-themed media? It’s also pleasing to see more discussions about the once largely backgrounded industry practises of palaeoartistry in both scientific and popular media. Realising the important role that palaeoart has for communicating science, many involved in its production are vocally distancing themselves from the ‘popularised’ image of dinosaurs to more nuanced, scientifically-validated and interesting portrayals of dinosaurs, as well as other forms of prehistoric life. We are still on the uphill part of this journey to revising our outreach approach, but it’s reassuring to know that a body of professionals are looking critically at dinosaur outreach and its wider impact.

Minor victories in recent palaeontological outreach involve effectively communicating to certain, interested audiences that Deep Time was not a dinosaur theme park, and that fossil creatures did not spend all their time battling and roaring at one another. Evidence that this message has hit home with at least some audiences is reflected in the broadening depth and nuance of palaeoart being posted across the internet. Shown here: my take on Jurassic stem-mammals, a gorgonopsian, gliding drepanosaurs, a goniopholidid crocodyliform, Cretaceous albanerpetontid, erythrosuchids, and... Longisquama, whatever the heck that is. Not shown here: dinosaurs in premier view, or roaring. The challenge is getting scenes like this, and subjects like this, to wider audiences.

Most of the discussions and innovation in dinosaur/palaeontolgical outreach are taking place online, and transferring these to ‘real-world’ outreach, where the necessity of resource investment makes change risky, may be our greatest upcoming challenge. Again, however, there are signs of this sort of thing happening, such as the famous (or infamous?) decision to replace the Natural History Museum’s famous Diplodocus cast with a blue whale skeleton. This logic of moving this famous attraction has been questioned by some, but I admire the museum for putting a very relevant and symbolically significant specimen in their most prominent location. In doing so, they’re making a clear statement about what they consider to be important, and what they want the public to engage with. Whether you agree with the controversial reorganisation of the natural history museum or not, the idea of outreachers taking initiative with their educational agenda is something I feel we should echo when popularising prehistoric animals. If our outreach is primarily reaching pre-interested audiences anyway, then why not have faith in their interest and tell them what we - as researchers, artists and curators - think is fascinating and exciting about our field, whether it’s related to dinosaurs or not? It would seem a diverse array of outreach topics is more likely to spread out from palaeo-primed audiences and into broader public interest than one largely revolving around a single, perhaps somewhat over-familiar topic. Perhaps cutting palaeontological outreach’s umbilical chord with dinosaurs would benefit us outreachers too, allowing us to freshen and rethink our approach to popularising neglected groups and focus on their own selling points, instead of using them to greater contextualise dinosaurs.

The risk of failure is what prevents many of us, and our employers, from straying too far from tried and tested means of outreach. And yes, if we’re talking paleontology with the public, dinosaurs are an obvious safety net. But we should take advantage of the fact that we’re more enabled than any previous generation of educators to cooperate, create and promote the subjects we feel are important with only a little inventive thinking and technological knowhow. Individuals can now develop significant outreach resources without the need for expensive designers and developers; online promotion can be essentially free; and the increasing accessibility of printing - both 2D and 3D materials - is lowering the financial risks tied into ‘real world’ outreach events. Any public enterprise involves a level of investment and risk, but resourceful thinking and shouldering the brunt of development ourselves can minimise these.

In closing, I want to stress that I’m not wailing on dinosaurs. As may be evident from my own output, I think they’re fantastically interesting animals with an important role to play in outreach. But for dinosaur outreach to be successful and support, not restrict, other outreach efforts we have to realise their limitations, as well as their strengths, as public ambassadors.

This piece of outreach was supported by Patreon

The paintings and words featured here are sponsored by folks who are certainly very popular in my house, my Patreon backers. Supporting my blog from $1 a month helps me produce researched and detailed articles with paintings to accompany them, and in return you get access to bonus blog content: additional commentary, in-progress sneak-previews of paintings, high-resolution artwork, and even free prints. For this post we'll be looking at my new angry nodosaur painting, discussing ankylosaurs in palaeoart and why they're so darned challenging to render well. Sign up to Patreon to be part of the discussion!

Reference

• Ross, R., Duggan-Haas, D. and Allmon, W. (2013). The posture of Tyrannosaurus rex: Why do student views lag behind the science? Journal of Geoscience Education, 61, 145-160

Azhdarchid pterosaurs vs. the world

Azhdarchids: also available in flying. Depicted animal here is based on Quetzalcoatlus sp., but no taxon in particular.

In just a few weeks the world will stop for TetZooCon, a one day convention of all things we associate with the famous Tetrapod Zoology blog and podcast - tetrapods real and scientifically-speculative from wondrous, charismatic fossil reptiles to deceptively interesting small, brown herpetofauna. If you’re reading this, you’re slap bang in the middle of the TetZoo demographic and I guarantee* you’ll have a good time. Tickets are available until Friday 4th July, and it’s all going down one week later - Saturday 12th. Get your place while you can, or forever live with the shame.

*Guarantee not guaranteed.

In a surprise move, my contribution to TetZooCon features pterosaurs. Specifically, I’m looking at the way one group of pterosaurs has made major ripples in the palaeontology pond in recent years - and not just scientifically. The changing face of pterosaur science is certainly interesting, but an equally intriguing, rarely told story exists on the popular face of flying reptile research. To whet your appetite, here’s an 'extended abstract' of my TetZooCon talk, giving some insight into what I'll be covering in a couple of weeks.

PteroPop

Pterosaurs are not unfamiliar characters in popular culture. They have been mainstays of science fiction literature since at least 1874 (Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth), made the jump to the silver screen in 1925 (The Lost World), and since starred in uncountable stories of time-travel, lost worlds and Jurassic Park-inspired de-extinction fiction. Neither are they strangers to public education, from being part of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1854 Crystal Palace menagerie to modern appearances in £multi-million documentaries. These historic popular pterosaurs rarely showed much adherence to flying reptile science: their appearances, behaviours and lifestyles mostly reflect a shorebird-like 'pterosaur archetype' rather than the specific anatomy and habits of a once-living taxon.

One of the many curious things about early azhdarchid reconstructions is the head nubbin - a short, posteriorly-directed conical(?) crest on the back of the head. There is nothing like this known from any azhdarchid. Far from being an early mistake, reconstructions with head nubbins persist until at least 2000. Slide from my TetZooCon talk.

But all that is changing. One pterosaur lineage has overshadowed ‘generic’ popular pterosaurs to bring aspects of ‘real’ pterosaurology to the masses, and has even stolen some limelight from dinosaur celebrities in the process. Media as disparate as documentaries and comic books show these animals in (basically) anatomically correct forms, with accurate but atypical postures, and behaviours which are far removed from the idea of pterosaurs being ancient seabird analogues. The animals in question are, of course, the long-necked, toothless and gigantic flying reptiles, Azhdarchidae.

In some respects, the recent surge of azhdarchid pop-culture uptake is a bit strange. It is not, for instance, that azhdarchids are a newly discovered group. Far from it, their fossils were found by at least the latest 1930s or early 1940s; good remains were apparent the 1970s, and the concept of Azhdarchidae was formalised in the early 1980s. They’re not new to popular culture either, having hung around its periphery since the 1970s to be wheeled out as 'Largest Flying Animals Ever' on occasion. These early popular azhdarchids showed little uniformity in their reconstruction - maybe even less than other pterosaurs at that time. Most bore little resemblance to actual azhdarchid fossils, either anatomically of functionally (above). They were depicted with huge variation from the 1970s-1990s: hugely elongate and narrow wings, or broad, kite-like wings? Longirostrine skulls with snub-noses or tiny pin-heads? Toothed or toothless jaws? Short necks, long necks with swan-like flexibility, or long necks stiffer than broom handles? Art produced in the 1980s - 2D work by Greg Paul, Paul MacCready’s 1985 glider (below), and a (largely sculpted) azhdarchid skeleton mounted by the Texas Memorial Museum - were probably the first works to strike close to reality, but they’re still a bit short of the mark. John Sibbick’s better known and more influential 1991 snub-nosed Quetzalcoatlus was a step back from these more accurate works, accidentally making a chimeric azhdarchid from at least two Javelina Formation azhdarchids (this ‘snub nose’ almost certainly belongs to an unnamed, short-skulled azhdarchid from the same horizon as Quetzalcoatlus).

The famous 1985 'QN' pterosaur, a half-size gliding Quetzalcoatlus northropi and friends, including its designer, the late Paul MacCready (right of middle, in the tie). The model flew successfully multiple times and isn't a bad rendition of an azhdarchid, although many assumptions made in its construction conflict with modern pterosaurology. From MacCready (1985).

Why all the confusion over azhdarchid appearance? Most azhdarchid material known until the late 1990s was either too scrappy to inform artists about life appearance, while the more complete material (the small Quetzalcoatlus species) remained unpublished (and still isn't). The world at large was therefore not able to appreciate azhdarchid anatomy, so any artwork of them required more guesswork than usual. In some cases, entire 'reconstructions' were products of imagination. Not aiding the murky early phase of azhdarchid palaeoart was the transforming nature of pterosaur science which, in the 1980s and 90s, saw much of what we thought we knew about these animals turned on its head. Thus, artists who wanted answers to simple questions like standing postures, wing membrane attachment and so forth weren't always presented with straight answers. 1997 saw a potential change for the better when Unwin and Lü (1997) reclassified the Chinese Maastrichtian ‘nyctosaurid’ Zhejiangopterus linhaiensis as an azhdarchid, but few paid attention to this obscure species when reconstructing 90s azhdarchids, and artwork continued to remain of variable accuracy. The azhdarchid fossil record has not improved fantastically since 1997, only expanding via isolated, scrappy bits and pieces. Their sudden popularity and uniformity of reconstruction has nothing to do with a significantly improved azhdarchid fossil record, then.

Azhdarchids: over 40 Megafonzies of cool!

So, if azhdarchids aren’t new, and they’ve not sent a burst of insightful fossil material our way, why are they now so popular? Perhaps recent reappraisals of their appearance and behaviour have more influence here than anything else. Reconsideration of azhdarchid mass estimates (e.g. Paul 2002; Witton 2008; Henderson 2010; Sato et al. 2010), re-interpretations of lifestyles (Hwang et al. 2002; Witton and Naish 2008, 2013; Carroll et al. 2013) and flight characteristics (Habib 2008, 2013; Witton and Habib 2010) have recast azhdarchids from billboards of flighted animal size to muscular, terrestrially-competent predators and powerful fliers, which just also happened to be giants. This has seen azhdarchids landing ‘major roles’ in palaeo pop media. In the last five years, erect-limbed, terrestrially stalking and quad-launching azhdarchids featuring in the BBC documentary Planet Dinosaur, Atlantic Productions’ Flying Monsters 3D, the 20th Century Fox film Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, the 20,000AD comic series Flesh and recent comics of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, been made into at least two figurines by CollectA, in the upcoming, Steam-released multiplayer game The Stomping Land, in Nathan Carroll's wearable pedagogic puppet form and even a rap. This uptake of the same pterosaur lineage is all the more surprising when you consider the diversity of influences and goals of these projects, as well as the near-infinite sea of fossil species which could take their place. More remarkably, these depictions of azhdarchids aren’t anatomically bad or variable, either: they have large, pointy heads with posteriorly placed crests, long necks, short wing fingers and long limbs. It seems azhdarchids have genuinely penetrated the pop-palaeo zeitgeist.

Azhdarchids in recent comic books, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the fabulous 20,000AD series Flesh. Note the far right panel - terrestrially stalked TO DEATH!!! Awesome stuff - should really cover Flesh in more detail here some time. Slide from my TetZooCon talk.

The times, they are becoming very different

I think there's several points of interest here. Firstly, we seem to be witnessing a relative rarity within palaeo pop culture: the indoctrination of a new lineage into the mainstream palaeontological canon. What takes a fossil species from an occasional extra and bit-part player to relative superstardom in the space of a few years? There must be aspects of ‘new’ azhdarchids which have made them more marketable and appealing in short time. And before anyone mentions it, I can vouch for azhdarchid uptake not being overtly pushed by the scientists involved in reinventing them. I've acted as a consultant for three of the projects listed above because ‘new’ azhdarchids were sought after by the media producers, and not as a generic pterosaur expert who pushed his own ideas. The other media, as far as I'm aware, just moved forward with these ideas on their own. 

There is doubtless a myriad of factors making azhdarchids popular - good publicity, a sudden glut of TV and movie interest in prehistoric animals etc. - but I suspect the most important factor is that science accidentally gave azhdarchids a more appealing ‘character’. When we restore fossil animals in art and science we cannot help but impose certain ‘character traits’ into them, and, as with fictitious characters, those with traits we consider desirable are more likely to be popular. 'New' azhdarchids embody everything which is classically cool: they’re original; imagined as assertive, confident animals of great skill and energy; visually interesting and striking; instantly recognisable, as well as being gigantic: metaphorically and physically bigger than us and our problems. Plus, they have that edge of danger: big, predatory species which harvest smaller ones for their own use - let's face it, bad guys and anti-heroes are always cooler than the good guys. In short, it’s not surprising that ‘new’ azhdarchids are popular because they embody the same characteristics as most iconic literary monsters. The traits outlined above could easily apply to H. G. Wells’ Martian tripods (below) or the Star Wars mechanical walkers. Prior to their reinvention, azhdarchids didn’t - and couldn’t - have this appeal, as their appearance was ill-defined, their lifestyles too poorly constrained (skim-feeding? sediment probing? aerial hawking? aquatic pursuit predation? wading?), and much of our science pointed to rather ineffective, flimsy animals. This not only prevented crystallisation of a consistent palaeo pop ‘character’, but also didn't give them much popular appeal.

The uptake of azhdarchids in pop-culture may reflect their recent recasting as stylish, dominating predators of small, defenceless animals, a formula known to strike a nerve with the public - ask H. G. Wells. Do our palaeo pop-culture icons attain iconic status because, like some literary ones, they simply evoke cool characteristics and styles? 

Perhaps more importantly, azhdarchids have - for what seems like the first time - persuaded popular culture to widely depict actual pterosaurs rather than an anonymous set of wing membranes and toothy jaws. That's pretty neat, as it means we're starting to break the notion that different pterosaurs are just minor variants on the same basic animal. I wonder if this applies to pterosaur science too, as research into azhdarchid lifestyles and habits is providing compelling evidence of palaeoecological variation within the group: the concept of shorebird, fish-eating habits applied almost universally to Pterosauria just doesn't work for these guys. With it being increasingly obvious that azhdarchids were doing their own thing, it's easier to start seeing other pterosaurs as potentially having distinctive lifestyles as well. Azhdarchids may be the thin end of the wedge in this respect for both popular and scientific circles.

Of course, no-one can predict how long our current interest in azhdarchids will last, nor what will happen to hypotheses concerning terrestrial stalking, quad-launch and so on. My gut feeling is that these ideas will stand up to scrutiny, but we can never predict what the fossil record or new studies will tell us. Whatever happens, these ideas and the animals they concern have gone some way to superseding generic ‘pterodactyls’ in palaeontological culture, replacing them with a more accurate and detailed appreciation of pterosaur diversity. But what next for azhdarchids? What advances in azhdarchid science are on the horizon? How might these impact their portrayal in popular culture? For that, you’ll have to attend TetZooCon and my talk. Tickets!

References

• Carroll, N. R., Poust, A. W. & Varricchio, D. J. (2013). A third azhdarchid pterosaur from the Two Medicine Formation (Campanian) of Montana. In: Sayão, J. M., Costa, F. R., Bantim, R. A. M. And Kellner, A. W. A. International Symposium on Pterosaurs, Rio Ptero 2013, Short Communications. Universidad Federal do Rio de Janeiro: pp 40-42. 
• Habib, M. B. (2008). Comparative evidence for quadrupedal launch in pterosaurs. Zitteliana, 159-166.
• Habib, M. (2013). Constraining the air giants: limits on size in flying animals as an example of constraint-based biomechanical theories of form. Biological Theory, 8(3), 245-252.
• Henderson, D. M. (2010). Pterosaur body mass estimates from three-dimensional mathematical slicing. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30(3), 768-785.
• Hwang, K. G., Huh, M., Lockley, M. G., Unwin, D. M., & Wright, J. L. (2002). New pterosaur tracks (Pteraichnidae) from the Late Cretaceous Uhangri Formation, southwestern Korea. Geological Magazine, 139(04), 421-435.
• MacCready Jr, P. B. (1985). The great pterodactyl project. Engineering and Science, 49(2), 18-24.
• Paul, G. S. (2002). Dinosaurs of the air: the evolution and loss of flight in dinosaurs and birds. JHU Press.
• Sato, K., Sakamoto, K. Q., Watanuki, Y., Takahashi, A., Katsumata, N., Bost, C. A., & Weimerskirch, H. (2009). Scaling of soaring seabirds and implications for flight abilities of giant pterosaurs. PloS one, 4(4), e5400.
• Unwin, D. M., & Lü, J. C. (1997). On Zhejiangopterus and the relationships of pterodactyloid pterosaurs. Historical Biology, 12(3-4), 199-210.
• Witton, M. P. (2008). A new approach to determining pterosaur body mass and its implications for pterosaur flight. Zitteliana, 143-158.
• Witton, M. P., & Habib, M. B. (2010). On the size and flight diversity of giant pterosaurs, the use of birds as pterosaur analogues and comments on pterosaur flightlessness. PloS one, 5(11), e13982.
• Witton, M. P., & Naish, D. (2008). A reappraisal of azhdarchid pterosaur functional morphology and paleoecology. PLoS One, 3(5), e2271.
• Witton, M. P., & Naish, D. (2013). Azhdarchid pterosaurs: water-trawling pelican mimics or "terrestrial stalkers"?. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica doi: http://dx. doi. org/10.4202/app, 5.

Can palaeoart prevent the over-commercialisation of fossils?

If money was no object, would you buy a sauropod skeleton, or artwork of one? A question to ponder while these Lower Cretaceous rebbachisaurids and 'Angloposeidon' look for water in this desiccating Wealden lake. Prints of this image are available here.

The greatest threat to 21st century palaeontology is the inflating commercialisation of fossils. At least, this the view put forward in a recent article by Kenshu Shimada and colleagues (2014), and I don't disagree with them. While the commercialisation of fossils is not inherently wrong, the explosion in auctioning spectacular fossil specimens, often at prices which are well beyond the reach of the scientific institutions, presents many concerns for palaeontological science. This is more than just jealousy from poor palaeontological institutions: it causes illegal plundering of fossil specimens, locality vandalism and loss of specimen provenance, robbing fossils of almost all scientific worth. Some legitimate scientists are involved in this game, either selling, lending their interpretation to auction lots, or publishing details of privately-owned fossils in peer reviewed literature. The latter, even when done with the best intentions (e.g. Sereno et al. 2009; Tischlinger and Frey 2013) panders to the private fossil market, sending a signal that scientists will accept and make-do with this new status quo. Even museums are getting in on the act, toying with the idea of selling off historically-valuable specimens for funding. At auction, commercial dealers often mislead buyers with scientific over-advertisement to increase lot appeal, making claims which have not been substantiated by genuine scientific investigation. The result has been years of debate over the legalities, economy and ethics of fossil commercialisation, with little evidence of a balance between those wanting to profit from and privatise fossils, and those who want them publicly preserved, studied and shared.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and maybe a radical approach is needed to help settle these debates. Such an idea was pushed forward by Shimada et al. (2014), who proposed that commercialising palaeoart may be a viable alternative to selling spectacular fossils. This is not quite the first time this idea has been mentioned, although I think it's the first time it's been mentioned in print. Shimada et al. do not dwell on the point too long, merely stating that:

"...suggestions have also been made that, similar to the annual meetings of the SVP, our paleontological community can perhaps promote the sales of fossil replicas and 'paleo arts' (e.g., paintings and 3-D models of extinct organisms) as acceptable alternatives [to real fossil specimens]." Shimada et al. 2014, p. 3

Intuitively, this seems like a good idea. Combining the lucrative art market with palaeontology should allow collectors to own fossil-related wares without loss of scientifically-important specimens. Palaeoartists would make money, more specimens would end up in academic institutions, and collectors would obtain rare and valuable items - everyone seems to win in this arrangement. As someone with some experience of working within the palaeoart industry however, I'm not convinced that this plan could be executed in the foreseeable future, nor that it provides a solution to the problems of over-commercialising fossils. There seem to be three problems here: 1) original palaeoart and fossil specimens are not as readily interchanged as some may think; 2) our art is not seen as particularly interesting or varied to wider audiences, and 3) the palaeoart community is simply not in shape to offer the high-value, desirable art required for this bid, and will not be until it receives a lot more support from the scientific community at large.

A Tarbosaurus specimen made famous - or more rightly infamous - when put up for auction in 2012. It was ultimately repatriated to Mongolia after palaeontologists pointed out the illegal nature of its exportation from its native country. Image from (shudder) the Daily Mail.

1. Palaeoart cannot compete with genuine fossils for aesthetic appeal or as a status symbol

As with any material item, the ownership of fossils is pursued because of academic interest, the collector mindset of owning unique objects, admiration of the natural beauty and the attainment of status. Fossil specimens, particularly large and spectacular ones, not only meet these criteria but exceed them. They're extremely rare. They cost lots of money to buy and maintain. And they're amazing. Looking at a fossil reminds us of unfathomable depths of time and evolution, and the very limits of our human experience. You don't have to know anything about fossils or palaeontology to be awed by them: their mystery, impressiveness, rarity and worth is obvious to anyone. It's little wonder that fossils can be sold at auction for large sums of money: they're immensely charismatic objects, and make major statements about the taste and wealth of their buyers.

If we intend on replacing fossils with palaeoartworks at auction, the latter needs to replace this appeal. Unfortunately, even the best-executed, most accurate, or most famous palaeoartworks can't inspire the same interest and awe as fossils themselves. That's not because palaeoartists are bad at their jobs, but because fossils and palaeoart are completely different entities. Fossils are natural objects obtained by chance and perseverance, and palaeoart is a human-derived statement about palaeontological science. It seems naive to expect rich buyers to turn from fossils to fossil-related artwork when the two have such different cultural statuses, and I think we are misunderstanding the people buying fossils if we think we can simply swap one for the other. We should probably abandon any hope of palaeoart being fossil substitutes, and realise that we need to sell palaeoart on its own merits.

Like any art, selling palaeoart is dependent on it being a fashionable commodity, culturally significant enough that it seems worth spending money on. Working against palaeoart in this regard is its real lack of status outside of the (largely online) palaeontology community. Palaeoart processes and credibility are poorly understood among the public and its most revered practitioners are entirely unheard of. It seems mostly considered a branch of dry scientific illustration, anonymous visual manifestations of what palaeontologists are imagining at a given time. Other times, palaeoart is seen as art for children, or pseudo-fantasy work with a similar target demographic to science fiction and fantasy media. In short, palaeoart is neither considered fashionable or culturally significant, and is not likely to appeal to the rich companies and celebrities who buy spectacular fossils at auction. The fact that master palaeoartists frequently find it difficult to auction their work at worthwhile prices lends credence to this idea. Sales of high-value palaeoart will not happen until we can demonstrate its cultural significance to people outside of palaeontology, and that's going to be an uphill struggle.

2. Palaeoart is probably too stylistically and compositionally homogenous to appeal to wider audiences

Because some art is sold on the strength of its style or composition, palaeoart may make some headway in the high-stakes open market so long as it offers a range of styles and subjects, with varied compositions and themes. Currently, palaeoart offers quite the opposite however, as it's compositionally and stylistically rather homogenous. Only rarely do palaeoartists deviate from realistic-ish portraits of animals, or animals in landscapes, to more stylistic or abstract waters. To my knowledge, this has never been done for significant financial gain. And yes, while palaeoartists do differ stylistically, it's a marginal difference compared to the spectrum in other branches of art. It's little surprise that palaeoart has entered a deconstructionist phase in recent years because its practitioners have noticed how repetitive and trope-filled a lot of palaeoart is (Conway et al. 2013). From a marketing point of view, this is dangerous territory. It's easy to imagine that many will take the attitude that 'once you've seen one piece of palaeoart, you've seen it all', and if its general style or compositions are not to taste, there's little chance of it being bought. We must remember that our objective here is to make palaeoart appeal as widely as possible, and not only to palaeontologists and dinosaur fans.

Those of us who know palaeoart may argue that it is continually changing and developing, and subject to fashions and trends as much as other artworks. These are mostly related to the methods of reconstruction and changes in science however, which are subtle to the point of near-undetectability for lay audiences. Palaeoartists and palaeoart fans may consider the publication of All Yesterdays (Conway et al. 2013) a recent landmark in palaeoart methodology, but for the uninitiated, it's just an excuse to draw extinct animals in different postures or with slightly tweaked anatomy. In short, unless potential buyers are up on palaeontological and palaeoart history - and most aren't - this significance of palaeoartworks will be missed. Our current lack of artistic diversity may be a real problem for those wanting to make palaeoart a valuable commodity.

Misty the Diplodocus, auctioned last year in the UK for £400,000. Image by Luke MacGregor/Reuters, from here.

3. Palaeoart needs support to develop the culture required for commercialisation

The points made above highlight palaeoart's biggest problem: it basically lacks context and culture outside of a tiny community. There's no way we can take this little industry to auction and expect it to compete with awesome fossils. There may be ways we can alter this, but it might require a significant overhaul of the way palaeoartists work with scientists, educators and the media. To be honest, palaeoartists are presently treated quite awfully with little public promotion, a resulting lack of public identity and an infamously poor and unreliable economy. This condition describes the 'major players' or 'masters' of palaeoart as well as its lesser-known or new, fledgling artists. We need to change this if we want palaeoart to step into the world of high-value auctions.

How might we go about this? Firstly, it is time that artists were obviously and publicly credited for their work. In other industries, artist names are essentially brands. Artwork is frequently valued because of who produced it rather than the art itself. In most off-line activities, palaeoartist accreditations are difficult to spot or, worse, allocated to faceless institutions or companies. This is even so in richly illustrated palaeontology books, where artists are treated as secondary importance to authors. This may be why palaeoart is often only seen as an extension of science: funny as it sounds, we rarely acknowledge palaeoartist roles in producing palaeoart. As long as we largely deny exposure and name-recognition to palaeoartists, no-one will pay top dollar for their work. Perhaps we should start prominently naming artists who make significant contributions to palaeontological projects - galleries, articles and books - to start building their reputations. With time, artist association may pay off commercially, lending 'brand recognition', credence or quality to the projects they work on. People could start to follow palaeoartist careers in the way we can musicians and actors and, when their original work comes up for sale, potential buyers will have some concept of its significance to the artist as well as wider scientific culture.

We also need to stamp out the idea that all palaeoart, and palaeoartists, are interchangeable. Not only is it highly detimental to palaeoartworks, but it cripples the industry as a whole. Book publishers, outreach coordinators and even major museums regularly have in-house artists directly copy palaeoartworks rather than using original work. Sometimes, the shamelessness of these acts is unbelievable. The reasons for this are normally to do with money and desire for 'in house' styling. This is a disaster for multiple reasons. From an outreach perspective, plagiarising artists often misunderstand their subjects and make mistakes: we fail in our goal of conveying palaeontology accurately. More broadly, these acts are questionable ethically and legally, they dilute the importance and impact of original work, are insulting to the original artists, and ultimately reduce the market value of palaeoartworks. I can't think of another artistic medium which allows this. Radio stations didn't play cover versions of Beatles songs because they don't want to pay royalties. Book publishers do not force artists to re-draw the Mona Lisa so it matches their house styles. They herald the art for what it is, its significance, and the hard work of the people behind it. By allowing palaeoart to be copied so liberally, we send the message that the artists are unimportant, which means their work is also worthless and undesirable.

The sort of crap palaeoartists have to put up with all the time. One is an original image considered shocking and thought provoking when first published, the other is a direct knock-off, produced for profit by a renowned palaeoart plagiarist. The institution hiring the latter has since taken the offending image, and others of similar derivation, out of circulation. 

This has to change if palaeoart is to develop any real sense of culture. After all, if the palaeontological community does not respect its artists, how can we expect wider audiences to? We need to stop employing individuals who repeatedly rip off other people's work and, if asked, palaeoartists themselves should refuse outright to rip-off the art of their colleagues. Authors, exhibition developers, publishers, and educators should employ genuine palaeoartists rather than knock-off illustrators, and obtain the education to know when 'historically important' images are more appropriate than new ones. We cannot have culture without a sense of history, after all. Some folks within the palaeontological community already strive to do this, often against the tide of publisher might. Palaeoartists do also sometimes get treated well by publishers, even being featured in well publicised, high quality books celebrating their art (e.g. White 2012). Unfortunately, these are exceptional instances in the palaeontological community, when they should be normal. I don't doubt this proposal will require more money to obtain original artwork for projects rather than second-rate copies, but the investment might pay off: better treatment and more business for palaeoartists; higher quality work for the products concerned; and more marketability for both. This would be a major step towards offering palaeoart as a replacement for fossil specimens.

Longer term, granting palaeoartists more fame, income and success can only have a positive outcome. Financially comfortable artists have more time to make art, which gives us more art to sell instead of fossils. Moreover, it allows time for experimentation. Palaeoart really needs this if we want it to float economically outside of the immediate palaeontological community. We need more stylised and abstract art in addition to more conventional scientific illustrations, or service to dinosaur fanboys. We can look to the popularity of modern animal artwork as a guide here: it's very popular, but also mostly stylised. Palaeoartists have little to offer in this area at the moment, and, if palaeoart is to really help push against over-commercialisation of fossils, we need fossil-based art which is as interesting and striking as the fossils themselves.

But will any of this ever happen?

The palaeoart industry has always been a bit of a slum to work in. Even Charles Knight, arguably the most famous palaeoartist ever, spent much of his career on sporadic contracts which made relatively little money (Milner 2012). There's no obvious sign that this is going to change either, or - from a strictly functional perspective - that it even has to. Palaeoart will probably always be around, its practitioners making the best they can from the opportunities that come their way. But this is not to say that perseverance alone makes it fit for high profile auctions as an antidote to over-commercialisation of fossils. There's very little palaeoart can do to develop itself, let alone take the brunt for another cause, until it is properly supported and respected by scientific and media communities, and we stop treating it as a near-worthless addendum to palaeontological science.

References

• Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M. & Naish, D. (2012). All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals. Irregular Books.
• Milner, R. (2012). Charles R. Knight: The Artist who Saw Through Time. Abrams.
• Sereno, P. C., Tan, L., Brusatte, S. L., Kriegstein, H. J., Zhao, X., & Cloward, K. (2009). Tyrannosaurid skeletal design first evolved at small body size. Science, 326(5951), 418-422.
• Shimada, K; Currie, P. J., Scott, E., & Sumida, S. S. (2014). The greatest challenge to 21st century paleontology: When commercialization of fossils threatens the science. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 17, Issue 1; 1E: 4 p;
• Tischlinger, H. & Frey, E. (2014). A new pterosaur with mosaic characters of basal and pterodactyloid pterosauria from the Upper Kimmeridgian of Painten (Upper Palatinate, Germany). Archaeopteryx, 31: 1-13.
• White, S. (2012). Dinosaur Art: the World’s Greatest Paleoart. Titan Books, London.

Childhood dinomania: the greatest of all palaeontological mysteries?

Sinornithoides youngi, a long-legged, gracile troodontid from China. But why are he and his contemporaries so darned popular, and particularly with children?

Perhaps the greatest question that surrounds prehistoric animals is nothing to do with their palaeobiology or evolution at all. An enormous question, and one that perhaps continues to defy satisfactory answer, concerns their endless cultural appeal. Why are these long-dead animals so darned fascinating to us? Internationally, vast sums of money are spent on research into them, the care of their fossils and the educating of others about them. We put their remains on display in vast, elaborate museums, write no-end of books and articles on them. But why? Why are we do dedicated and passionate about these animals, to the point of near obsession in some individuals? I can understand that a few components of palaeontology have clear rewards. Palaeontologists specialising in invertebrates and microfossils are essential components of any team hoping to find hydrocarbon reserves, giving their research obvious application and financial implications. Such studies may also shed light on rates and mechanisms of evolution, which has bearing for the conservation and preservation of our modern biota. Most fossil vertebrate lineages, however, are of little use for, well anything. They may be interesting, but the scant nature of their fossil record doesn't allow their use in any applied studies. Our interest in them is purely academic. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, I guess we could say.

Minor interests
Of course, interest in fossil vertebrates is not confined to academics and, in fact, the largest audiences for prehistorically-themed topics is under 10 years old. Of all fossil animals, the appeal of Mesozoic reptiles to young individuals is particularly well known, and encouraged by adults for good reason. Mesozoic reptiles introduce children to important concepts of science and the natural world, provide wonderful material to teach mathematics, literary and drawing skills, and, unlike many other things kids are interested in, they represent reality. Learned information about Mesozoic reptiles are learned facts about things that actually happened, not some silliness about Pokémon, ThunderCats, or... blast, who the devil do children like?... Or Morgan Freeman.

Young interests in palaeontology aren't really questioned, they're just accepted and ran with. Discussions as to why young people are so interested in Mesozoic reptiles aren't uncommon, but they're of secondary concern to nurturing childhood interests in the topic. As Dave Hone wrote about this topic at his Lost Worlds, " I won't pretend to know why, but kids really do love dinosaurs and the important thing is that they do." There's certainly nothing wrong with this attitude, but the why of this question has been on my mind of late. My second cousin is as dinosaur-obsessed as any young boy should be and I'll be spending the day with him next week. I'll also be gaining a nephew before too long. Between these two small members of my family clan, I'm expecting to have to play the cool, 'dinosaur'-researching relative for a while yet. All of which makes me wonder why, why why are small people so interested in these animals?

Proof that I liked 'safe monsters' as much as anyone when I was small. What's a 'safe monster'? Read on! (image by me, age 7[ish]. My younger self bore amazing powers of prediction for my own future with the pterosaur attacking dinosaur).

Standard responses
The most common explanation I've heard to this question is stressed in this article and others like it. Mesozoic reptiles are monstrous, and kids like monsters. They like these even more however, because they're long dead, and therefore 'safe'. Unlike real monsters, like the bogeyman, things that live under the bed and recent Discovery Communications documentaries, Mesozoic reptiles can't hurt us any more. Under this logic, extinction is the key agent here. Kids like the security that extinction offers between themselves and the monsters they're reading about.

Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton offered a completely different explanation, linking dinosaurs with authority figures, like parents. He wrote in his 1993 novel:

"...he mused on what it was about Dinosaurs that appealed to kids. He decided that dinosaurs represented a sort of symbolic authority to kids, a sort of surrogate parent. Just like a parent, they were simultaneously frightening yet accessible, and they presented an authority figure they could love. He also thought that children found satisfaction in saying the names of the animals, as that represented a sort of power of the vanished giants, showing a form of control."

Here, it would seem, it's not extinction at all that's key: it's the perception of authority and accessibility that Mesozoic animals seemingly offer children, and their own desire to master and control their expression. Other common explanations include an escapist quality to learning about the distant past, being able to express our childhood selves through acting out dinosaur fantasies, and because dinosaurs are strange, and yet real beings.

I've got to admit that I cannot really reconcile any of these explanations with what I know about being interested in Mesozoic animals, either as an adult or a child. They - particularly the first two suggestions - seem to complicated, too 'psychological'. I cannot ever remember associating Tyrannosaurus with my parents, or disliking other monstrous creatures because they weren't long extinct. I don't think the 'distance' between myself and dinosaurs, or any other monsters, really mattered. The fact that Mesozoic animals once existed was kinda cool I guess, but clearly not a deal-clincher: I was interested in plenty of make-believe things when I was small. And while kids are undoubtedly irrational sometimes, I don't think their grasp of what is a tangible, 'real' threat and slightly scary but fantastic beast isn't as blurred as the above explanations suggest. I note that many of the suggested points are rather anthropocentric, explaining that our childhood selves are interested in these animals because they reflect our own lives somehow, but that also doesn't seem right. My childhood interest in dinosaurs and the like seemed more innocent than that: I just wanted to know more about them and play within their universe. These ideas don't even seem like explanations which, in hindsight, chime with a deeply buried feeling associated with my childhood obsession with all things Mesozoic. Conversations with friends and colleagues suggest these explanations are similarly unfamiliar to them.

This makes me wonder if we're thinking about this the wrong way. We seem to expect that the appeal of Mesozoic reptiles to children is a unique trait, an X-factor, something inherently mystical about these animals which mean most children will be under their spell at some point. There may be, but I wonder if we're over-thinking this. Perhaps there is no unique factor behind the popularity of Mesozoic reptiles with young humans, and they're popular with kids for the same reasons that a lot of things are. Maybe the reason children like Mesozoic reptiles is very simple: they're just really cool.

The Anatomy of Cool
Let's run with this idea for just a moment. Mesozoic reptiles certainly tick all the boxes for Cool Things That Kids Like. Starting with the most obvious: they look awesome. Innumerable cartoons and comics featuring appealing characters and creatures are testament to the power awesome-looking beings have over children. The muscular bodies, dynamic postures, horns, frills, teeth and claws of many Mesozoic reptiles are clear signs of badassery, and kids of all ages respond positively to that. Perhaps the consistent choice of favourite dinosaurs in youngsters reflects this. Although most children's dinosaur books introduce a wide selection of species, it's the most anatomically extreme and charismatic species that are picked out by generation after generation as Top Dino. Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Baryonyx, Velociraptor, Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus and so forth are consistent favourites. Some kids - especially cootie-ridden girls, because they're rubbish and smelly - might like prefer cuter, baby versions of dinosaurs,  but they still pick babies of the most immediately interesting taxa. By contrast, no kid has ever said that their favourite dinosaur is Iguanodon or Hypsilophodon, because they're freakin' boring to a sub-10 year old. This is despite them being among the 'safest' dinosaurs, bearing no real offensive equipment and having no interest in eating children. Kids dig awesome, even if it's a little scary, and their favourite dinosaurs are full of it.

Do kids like Sinornithoides? I don't know that they do, but it would definitely score Cute Points when they realised that the holotype was found in a Mei-like sleeping posture. Of course, Sinornithoides was described by Russell and Dong way back in 1993, including discussion of its sleeping posture, meaning it pre-dates the announcement of sleepy Mei by over a decade. This fact seems mostly overlooked nowadays, however.

Mesozoic animals are also immediately characterisable. A cursory glance at a menagerie of Mesozoic animals reveals which ones are 'good' - the plant and fish eaters - and which are 'bad' - the carnivores. Universes designed with young people in mind go to great lengths to give their characters similarly recognisable traits of good and bad. They also, as with Mesozoic reptiles, make their characters wear their lifestyles on their sleeves. It's immediately clear that they spend their time doing interesting things because their appearance (clothing, physical characteristics, objects they carry) consistently reflects their habits. When do we see warrior characters in children's shows put their weapons down, or adventurers leave their backpacks and hats behind? Never, because it's part of who they are. The same is true of Mesozoic reptiles: their lifestyles are clear from their anatomy, and their habits are obviously interesting. As with invented universes, this allows even young children to have a fairly immediate, if very basic understanding of the dynamics of the Mesozoic world, and that makes it fun to play with and think about. I've written before about how some Mesozoic creatures even come with pre-conceived ideas of 'character': the frills and horns of some dinosaurs recall the armaments of knights, the powerful jaws and teeth of tyrannosaurs make them obvious threats, and so on. These perceived anthropomorphisms may tie into the choice of favourite species among children, perhaps reflecting elements of wish-fulfilment and reflection of individual  personalities, but the same applies to their selection of a favourite Transformer or mutated ninja turtle.

What about complicated Latin and Greek names? Surely they must have some unique appeal? It's perhaps no coincidence that many favourite Mesozoic animals are also those with the coolest names. Animals with undoubtedly disastrous (Futalognkosaurus) or boring (the infinite numbers of Placename-osaurus we now have) names are unlikely candidates for being any child's favourite. The strong, weighty names of Deinonynchus, Pteranodon, Plesiosaurus and Diplodocus are where it's at. Really, they aren't actually too different or more difficult to say than invented names of child-approved fantasy universes. A of extinct animal names are no trickier or less familiar to children than the names of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings characters, for instance. There may be no more psychological significance to a child saying the word 'Gallimimus' than there is them saying 'Legolas' or 'Dagobah'.

The stats and factoids associated with Mesozoic reptiles are perhaps also factors in childhood palaeo cool. Any juvenile palaeo nut worth their salt knows the size, mass, biogeography, geological period, lineage, and diet of a hundred extinct species. Our brains are sponges for that kind of stuff when we're small, but not only for Mesozoic animals. Kids get obsessive about all manner of data, hence the success of all these newfangled Japanese card playing games with weird animals and, before them, things like Top Trumps, complex board and video games and RPGs. It seems that, if children like a topic, and the information is there to be learned, they'll take it in whether it has a dinosaur stamped on it or not.

Sinornithoides again, acting as end-of-post wallpaper

We've now also created a rich array of Mesozoic reptile merchandise for children to enjoy - toys, games, books, films and TV shows and so on - which, again, mirrors the development of universes invented for child consumption. These are food in the purest form for the imaginations of small children, enhancing their ability to play out their own interpretations of the Mesozoic in the same way that the merchandise of invented franchises allows kids to play within other universes. Unlike many franchises aimed at children, however, Mesozoic reptiles rarely disappear from fashion, and their merchandise is always easy to obtain. Indeed, I wonder if the perpetual availability of Mesozoic reptile merchandise and media has made it almost certain that child interests in these animals will never go away. Given the ripeness of childhood minds for the awesomeness of Mesozoic reptiles and the associated financial gain from making Mesozoic merchandise, we may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that children will always be introduced to and inspired to learn more about these animals.

The discussion at the end

With all these things considered, I really wonder if Mesozoic reptiles have, or indeed need a mysterious 'X-factor' to explain their appeal. I don't think it's been an intended goal of palaeontologists or merchandisers, but these two contrasting industries have created a window into the Mesozoic that children can enjoy on many levels, developing a world which couldn't be more child-friendly if someone designed it. The many parallels we see between childhood palaeo culture and industries designing universes to interest children are surely a reflection of this. Cool, identifiable creatures with interesting lives, awesome names and stats, and a wealth of merchandise. That description could describe how children will interpret palaeontology, or it could describe the way they'll interpret Doctor Who.

As a final point to chew on, I think it's interesting that we don't really feel a need to explain the childhood appeal of superheroes, spaceships and giant robots by means of an X-factor', but we do for Mesozoic reptiles. Adults just accept that kids find these more anthropocentric topics inherently awesome and interesting, and that's good enough. Why doesn't that work for palaeontological topics? Is it a little worrying that we think like this? That the raw appeal of the natural world, which kids seem to intuitively grasp as interesting and awesome, isn't a strong enough draw on it's own, and requires rationalising into a more a anthropocentric model to explain it's childhood appeal? Maybe there's something to be learned from that. General knowledge and understanding of the natural world is critically poor, biological education is consistently being attacked by anti-scientific groups, and media groups increasingly think that the natural world needs sexing up with human interaction and made-up science. Maybe if we just remembered that it's OK to find the natural world fascinating and awesome because it is, and that we don't need to make ourselves the centre of everything, these issues wouldn't be anywhere near as big and worrying as they are.

Reference

• Russell, D. A., and Dong, Z. M. 1993. A nearly complete skeleton of a new troodontid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of the Ordos Basin, Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 30, 2163-2173.

What Daleks, xenomorphs and slasher movies tell us about palaeoart

A Mesozoic slope supporting a nesting Torvosaurus tanneri, one of the biggest and most distinctive predators of the Jurassic, and yet strangely under-represented in palaeoart compared to other theropods. I'm not sure why: we should be queueing up to draw this thing. Long body plan, a skull and teeth that go all the way up, and a maxilla that won't quit. What's not to like?

Palaeoartists are obsessed with rendering fossil animals accurately. It's part of the job. The latest palaeontological research is grilled for data which can inform the appearance, posture and behaviour of their subject matter, allowing them to recreate ancient life in the most accurate manner currently available. Accordingly, the harshest scrutiny applied to any painting or sculpture of a fossil taxon concerns the anatomy of its creatures. Do their bone structure and proportions match the fossils? Are the muscles big enough and attaching in the right places? Does the integument match up to fossil data? Get those wrong, and the reconstruction isn't truly successful, because it doesn't accurately reflect reality.

Beyond the animals themselves however, are other choices which are relevant to achieving a sense of realism in palaeoart: the basic composition of the image or sculpture itself. The landscape, the setting, the mise en scène. For all of the excellent palaeoart out there, I think virtually all of us are guilty of some stylistic choices which may work against making our images looking totally convincing. This isn't because of problems with  artistic ability or approach but instead, as All Yesterdays pointed out for animal reconstructions, some stylistic conventions have become so overused that they've become tropes and stereotypes. Once you notice them, it's hard to forget that you're basically looking at a product of imagination. In other instances, we perhaps unintentionally lean too heavily on pieces of influential but inaccurate artwork or have simply developed habits which, viewed from within the looking glass, are actually a little strange.

It's these stylistic issues that I want to talk about here. There are lots of quirks and niggles we could cover - they become very numerous once you start thinking about them - but, in this post, we're going to pick on my personal top four stylistic points that jar my sense of disbelief. Before we get going, I think I should remind everyone that this is very much an opinion piece, and please feel free to tell me where to get off if you disagree with these points. Moreover, I count myself as guilty as anyone else in perpetuating some of the tropes and annoyances discussed here, and I'm certainly not having a pop at anyone in particular. The goal here is to get us thinking, that's all. Just for fun, I've assigned a five point 'Reality Crash Rating' to each, with scores of one meaning that I think something is in danger of becoming a negative stereotype eroding palaeoartistic credibility, and five being a habit that we should all snub and divorce immediately because it completely ruins the illusion of an ancient world. All set? OK, off we go.

1. The Mesozoic, ripe for Dalek conquest
It's a well known that the famous Doctor Who villains, the Daleks, were perceived to struggle with complex terrain and stairs for much of their televisual history. This became such a joke that the show itself had a few pokes at that obvious failing of their most famous antagonists. Of course, recent advances in Dalek technology (and er, BBC VFX) negate these problems for modern episodes, but even a roadside kerb would be a bit of an issue for an onscreen Dalek for much of the series history. What does this have to do with anything? Palaeoartistic work indicates Daleks would do a heck of a lot better if they just invaded the Mesozoic. Completely flat, horizontal ground stretching way off into the distance seem to occur in the overwhelming majority of palaeoart scenes. Go and Google some for yourself to check. See what I mean? Sure, there may be some highlands and forests as a far-off backdrops and even sometimes in the middle distance, but the animals themselves keep to flat stages without inclination or slope. What's more, as pointed out by Duane Nash at Antediluvian Salad, said animals often occupy patches of bare earth without vegetation. Frankly, I can't imagine a superior Dalek holiday spot.

"Puny Earthlings: your mighty stairs cannot save you this time! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
(Hasty composition thrown together with awesome sauropod artwork by Mark Hallett, borrowed from here, and Daleks borrowed from The Mind Robber).  

It's obvious why our palaeoart landscapes are generally so flat. Most palaeoartists are interested in showing off as much of their animals as they can, and sometimes as many animals as they can, and a flat stage is a pretty good way to do that. And yes, many animals from terrestrial biomes are preserved in ancient floodplain deposits, so much of their local landscape probably was fairly flat. Interestingly, the most common alternative to flat ground is complex and tiered environments such as forests (with obligatory fallen trees) and rocky outcrops. It's either a flat stage, or backgrounds so awesome that they dwarf their animals. There's not much in the way of middle ground.

Reality Crash Rating: 2/5
We might ask ourselves if this matters or not. I mean, the images are about the animals, right? Who cares what the terrain is like? I think it does matter, though. Our planet isn't just comprised of flat, open space bordered by dramatic valleys, giant dunes and redwood forests. A lot of it is just a little bit hilly, with immature woodlands and, you know, little gullies and stuff. There's no reason to think the planet has had a significantly different landscape for much of its recent history, and I think we should try to reflect that in our artwork. Adding a few slopes and inclinations to an image gives the terrain a little bit of character and goes a long way to making a setting look like an actual location, one that we could stumble across ourselves on hikes and walks in our own countrysides. Überflat or superforested settings, but contrast, are more 'extreme' environments that certainly exist, but comprise considerably less of the Earth than palaeoart suggests (even correcting for anthropic factors). What's more, they're so commonplace now that they've become a bit generic: how many images of ceratopsids in dense forest are there? Or sauropods on open, flat ground? I'm amazed at how much more believable images look once a few slopes and inclines are added: check out John Conway's sauropod herds for the impact that adding some slight topography can have. I like that series of pictures so much because many of them have unusual topography, which makes it seem far more like John went out and painted some real sauropods from a real location.

2. Franchisosaurs

How many recreated extinct species owe significant aspects of their reconstruction to popular franchises? Regular readers may recall touching on this problem when considering Feather Resistance a few months ago. If animals are reconstructed memorably in film and literature they run a chance of being forever depicted in that same guise in popular media. Jurassic Park and the Walking with... series are probably the biggest modern focal points for these sort of homages, as the work of famous palaeoartists Charles Knight and Zdenek Burian were before them. The influence of these works is typically fairly muted among professional or, shall we say, 'dedicated' palaeoartists, but is rampant among toy and model manufacturers, book illustrators and more 'casual' palaeoartists. 

Vladimir Bondar's Jurassic Park dromaeosaurs, recently given a baffling rebranding as Torvosaurus in a media release. Seriously, what happened there? Note the animal in the middle distance is directly mirrored in this still from Jurassic Park III.  Image borrowed from the Huffington Post. 

Reality Crash Rating: 5/5

Does a little bit of copying from other work matter? I mean, why not take a cool looking depiction of a fossil species and use it again if you like it? On the one hand, no. Taking an existing colour scheme or plumage pattern and tacking it to a new reconstruction may be unimaginative, but it's not the end of the world. All out copying of franchise animal anatomy is risky however, because many famous reconstructions of prehistoric species don't reflect modern thoughts on the appearance of fossil animals. The reason for this is not, as you may expect, just because they've fallen behind palaeontological science. Sometimes, they were never accurate in the first place. This applies to several modern franchises. The much-copied, cool-looking arches above the eyes of Jurassic Park Tyrannosaurus? Nothing like that on real Tyrannosaurus skulls. The ridges on the headcrest on the Walking with Dinosaurs Tupandactylus (called 'Tapejara' in the show)? Not sure why they're there, as the fossils show nothing like that. Of course, it goes without saying that virtually all famous maniraptoran dinosaur reconstructions are a million miles away from their extinct counterparts. And these are just the examples that first spring to mind.

I guess the reasons for depicting 'incorrect' species in modern franchises are many. Sometimes the technology just isn't there to render anatomies convincingly (I believe this explains the general lack of feathers and other fuzz in the original Walking with Dinosaurs), and maybe some inaccuracies are just honest mistakes. Often, however, these anatomical discrepancies are often introduced in spite of technical guidance. It is extremely common for filmmakers to tweak designs or just plain ignore suggested changes from consultants, and sometimes they have no real regard for accuracy at all. For whatever reason, franchise reconstructions frequently only partly resemble actual fossils species despite their slick on screen rendering, and thus are moving towards being fantasy creatures (to greater and lesser extent, of course) than reconstructions of ancient realities. The obvious moral is to base reconstructions on up-to-date, scientifically rigorous skeletal reconstructions and fossils themselves, and take only inspiration from our favourite palaeo-themed media. No news at all to practised palaeoartists then, but clearly a lesson that other artists would do well to learn.

3. The Slasher Pose
The tension of many slasher movies is broken with a classic shot of an antagonist leaping directly at the camera from obscurity, arms agape and weapons ready to grab and hack whichever young starlet has just stumbled past their hiding place. It's what I'll term the Slasher pose. When used well, it's certain to burn that moment into the mind of the audience who've just spilt their popcorn in terror and, despite being clichéd and a cheap scare, it's featured in many of the best horror films of all time.

A completely different medium has recently latched onto the Slasher Pose, also to reveal creatures to audiences from obscurity: palaeoart. How many press release images of new dinosaur species feature animals with their faces and hands careering towards the viewer, usually while running, jumping or doing something else dramatic at the same time? Classic Slasher Poses, every one of them. It's even better if said animal has some nasty teeth, claws or horns: get those in our faces to show us how weird and nasty this guy was. It's not just press releases where we see this concept either. If you want to 'refresh' the appearance of a familiar species, or else make things look bodacious for the kidz*, Slasher Poses are the Go To posture. Nothing says "X-TR3ME!" like a dinosaur posed so we can check out the content of its nostrils. A variant on this trope is to show a similarly posed animal without the distorting perspective. They still very much look like they wants to grab you or twat you around the face with some neon claws, but they aren't so close to the viewer.

*I'm reassured that this is the sort of language kids are into nowadays. God forbid the idea that I'm one of those cats who's lost touch with modern youth. That'd be so square.

The most ungodly and terrifying theizinosaur in the world. Seriously: look at it. Part Freddie Fruger, part jabberwock, all terror. Classic Slasher Pose action. Photograph from The Birds & The Peas.

Reality Crash Rating: 3/5
To an extent, the use of Slasher Poses is a purely stylistic choice that no-one can really moan about objectively. I'm sure plenty of fossil species adopted such postures on occasion and, who knows, maybe they also got in each others faces while doing so. I do have to admit not being a fan of Slasher Poses personally. For all of their conveyance of prehistoric animals as dynamic and exciting, Slasher Posed animals look a bit cartoony. This isn't a problem restricted to dinosaurs. Even fictitious creatures specifically designed to look menacing or cool can't pull off Slasher Poses in still images (below), and I personally don't think it's an effective way to reconstruct real species. I've speculated before that Slasher Poses may even be a factor in the lack of 'acceptance' of feathered dinosaurs by the general public. Such artwork was definitely in vogue when feathered dinosaurs were first being discovered en masse in China, so many of the first images we saw of these animals were improbably cartoony and somewhat weird-looking. They were certainly nowhere near as cool as their scaly forebears, and perhaps did little to warm people to the most significant discoveries in recent dinosaur palaeontology. In addition, Slasher Poses are of questionable use from a purely functional perspective. They actually don't tell us much about the anatomy of the animal because its either obscured by enormous, perspective-enlarged heads or is distorted by foreshortening.

This scares the pants off me when it's a quick, rapid cut at the end of a tense scene. Freezeframed, it looks a lot less menacing, and almost a bit silly. If Geiger's xenomorphs can't pull off a Slasher Pose, despite being one of the coolest creature designs of all time, nothing can. Image borrowed from You've Got Red on You.

Of course, the above is my entirely subjective view. There is perhaps one objective reason why Slasher Poses may be considered a bad habit for palaeoartists, however. Slasher Posed imagery is completely at odds with the way we observe modern animals (excluding those unfortunate few who get on the wrong end of a large, dangerous species). The postures and perspectives are so contrary to our own animal experiences that they can't fool viewers into thinking that the artist has drawn something real, but are clearly largely derived from imagination. If, as discussed above, a goal in palaeoart is convincing viewers that the artist has actually seen the worlds they're reconstructing, this is a problem. In addition, the frequency that we see Slasher Poses suggest extinct animals were pulling them all the time, but, if modern animals are anything to go by, they would have spent much of their time looking subdued and less dynamic. Paintings of calmer, more distant animals may not be as exciting as Slasher Pose works, but they're a heck of a lot more convincing (see below for more on animal posture in palaeoart). To me, Slasher Poses seem to be more about trying to make animals look awesome than they are about depicting reality. If the latter is our intended goal, Slasher Poses probably aren't the way to reach it.

4. ROOOOAAAARRRR!!!
If there's one thing extinct animals do well, it's roaring. Roaring, roaring, roaring. All the places, all the time. Some species are hardly ever depicted with their mouths shut because they're too busy bellowing their lungs out at absolutely anything. Alone or in groups, exerting themselves or just standing around, they're roaring at something. When combined with Slasher Poses - which frequently happens - it's us being roared at, but there's frequently nothing obviously on the end of all this noise. I assume said animals are just angry with passing clouds or having a sugar crash. The award for Most Tinnitus Inducing Prehistoric Species undeniably belongs to dinosaurs, and particularly to big theropods who are almost entirely incapable of quiet expression. It's like the entire world left Caps Lock on for 180 million years.

Dinosaur social networking must have been a nightmare to read. 'Profile pictures' by John Sibbick, Luis Rey, Todd Marshall, Papo, Walking with Dinosaurs and Raul Martin.

Reality Crash Rating: 4/5
OK, I'll put my cards on the table now: the roaring trope really annoys me. I get why people want their dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals roaring and vocalisation all the time. It looks dramatic and suits some compositions well. The end of the first Jurassic Park movie would've been a let down if the Tyrannosaurus just killed the dromaeosaurs and then just quietly walked away, for instance. But do fossil animals have to be loudly vocalising so frequently? Take a look at the animals we see in every day life: they aren't forever making noise. Vocalising has a specific function, a time and place to be used. That time is not 'all the time', and the place is not 'everywhere'. We need to think harder about when fossil animals should be screaming and growling, and when they should being shutting the Hell up. For instance, why, dear Lord why, are there so many reconstructions of extinct predators and prey animals roaring at one another? Bear in mind that predatory acts are strenuous. The prey animals are running or fighting for their lives, while the predator is using precious energy to catch and kill them. Both are at extremely high risk of injury or death. Does it make sense to have these animals yelling at each other, using precious effort and concentration to do so, and sometimes even looking at each other while running to maximise the dramatic effect? Almost certainly not. Predators and prey should look focussed on the task at hand, not waving their heads around screaming like babies. Presumably, this focus is why modern animals keep quiet during crucial moments in predator/prey interactions: they're literally in a life and death situation, not an action movie.

But it's not just choosing the right moment for depicting loud vocalisations that's important. When fossil species roar and vocalise, they should do in the same manner as their modern relatives. Dinosaurs and other fossil archosaurs are my big bug bear here. Unlike mammals, archosaurs don't need to open their mouths wide to make a heck of a lot of noise. For a cracking example, check out these bellowing alligators from Colorado Gators (some of the best examples occur after the 3 minute mark).



Wonderful stuff, and all done without a single gaping mouth. All manner of hisses, squeaks and calls can come from archosaur throats without waving their jaws around agape. Sure, they do use their mouths to control the pitch and volume of their vocalisations in many cases, but they don't need to resemble Pavarotti to achieve some magnificent noises. We really need to consider that before we draw yet another screaming tyrannosaur with widely gaped jaws. I suppose an argument could be made against this point that, without open jaws, viewers won't know that the animal is meant to be making any sound. This isn't entirely true, however: the throat sacs of vocalising archosaurs are often inflated to assist with noise production and pitch, and dinosaur throats were almost certainly doing the same thing (notice the workings of the throat sacs on the bellowing crocodylians above, for instance). I think we're simply become so accustomed to seeing dinosaurs vocalise in a mammalian fashion that we haven't really bothered to explore the many other sonic alternatives for these animals.

Aggressive snap display posture in the effectively mute marabou stork, where the body is lowered, the neck retracted  and the bill is clattered towards an attacker. One of many threat displays in this species, and quite unlike most aggressive postures shown in restored dinosaurs. Image from Kahl (1966).

There's more to this trope. Why do so many of our depicted vocalising archosaurs have the same basic elevated head and torso posture? Body language is extremely diverse and important to modern archosaurs, and social signalling doesn't always involve simply rearing up and yelling. There's all sorts of elaborate head movements, neck postures, torso orientations, and even tool use in play there. We only really show reconstructions of animals fighting and flirting, but modern archosaurs have body postures to reflect feelings of agitation, attract attention, indicate distress, for begging and even distinct copulation postures. The number of these within a species is compounded by differences in social stature, age and the nature of the stimulus. There's a lot of this stuff that could be incorporated into palaeoart. With all this in mind, we have a great opportunity to turn the infernal racket made by restored archosaurs into intelligent communication between  the reconstructed animals, and more importantly, the viewer. There's a goldmine of  language in ethology papers that we could be translating into our palaeoart, rather than just depicting animals roaring and telling us how big they are. (For more on this topic, check out Tetrapod Zoology Podcast episode 6, and this post.)

The end bit
On that noisy bombshell, it's time to wrap up for the time being. Again, I want to emphasise that this piece is not about palaeoartists 'getting it wrong'. It's simply saying that we may be guilty of becoming to comfortable with certain conventions which, for whatever reason, may be detrimental to the goal of reconstructing extinct animals. There's certainly many more things to say on topics like these. At one point, this post was going to feature 10 points, complete with the theme tune from BBC's Pick of the Pops to count down with. Maybe I'll feature the other 6 if and when I get the time. Until then, feel free to make your own suggestions about compositional tropes or bad palaeoartistic habits in the comments below.

 Reference

• Kahl, M. P. 1966. A contribution to the ecology and reproductive biology of the Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumeniferus) in East Africa. Journal of Zoology, 148, 289-311.